


What Is, Just Is, I Know

by JDylah_da_Kylah



Series: You Only Meant Well? [7]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: AFAB Frisk, Confessions, Family Feels, Family Issues, Friendship/Love, Gen, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Non-Binary Frisk, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Undertale Pacifist Route - "I want to stay with you."
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-19 05:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9420044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JDylah_da_Kylah/pseuds/JDylah_da_Kylah
Summary: Rescued by Frisk (on a thread of hope and faith) from a self-imposed exile in the Underground, Asriel wrestles with the weight of everything that's happened, that's been done, knowing that even if everyone he loves accept him for who he really is—not what he's become—well, who he reallywasmight shock them, too. But it's a bitter truth to hold, and he isn't sure he can (or should) keep Chara's secrets anymore.Or: "So we're trapped by answers. Love haunts to the end."





	

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up being a lot longer and more in-depth than I'd anticipated. Well. Heh. There we go. Otherwise, here's my obligatory headcanon warning, and I'd also like to offer the following lyrical snippet as something of my inspiration:
> 
> "This is a day without  
> A trace of reason  
> No matter where you turn.  
> And the walls will fall,  
> Affirming nothing,  
> So what's it all about?
> 
> Call on a bright star  
> Or play your hand as an intellect.  
> Wounds always speak too loud.
> 
> Get along for awhile.  
> Citizen, you will see  
> How the innocent are bound to the damned.  
> What is, just is, I know.  
> So we're trapped by answers.  
> Love haunts to the end."  
> (Broken Bells, "Citizen")
> 
> (I know I've used this on a previous _Starfighter: Eclipse_ fic, but I couldn't resist having the lyrics here, too—they fit too well.  <3)
> 
> Anyway. On the one hand, I really just wanted everyone to wrap their heads around the fact that it's Asriel (in Flowey-form) and life'll just be _peachy_. But the more I got to thinking about what happened between Asriel and Chara, the more I thought about the tapes in Alphys' true lab, the more I thought about what Flowey says on a Geno run . . . well. There's some heavy, heavy stuff that, if given the chance, I can't imagine Asriel would want to keep bottled up and to himself any longer, especially if he's going to be living around the people he loves who were hurt and got wrapped up in everything besides.
> 
> Finally, I was replaying _Undertale_ this weekend and was given a moment's pause by a comment Papyrus makes when you're poking around his kitchen, specifically the oven (which I apparently didn't do my first playthrough around): "My brother usually goes out to eat, but . . . recently he tried *baking* something. It was like . . . a quiche. But filled with a sugary, non-egg substance. How absurd!"
> 
> Which means . . .
> 
> Sans was baking a pie?
> 
> Needless to say my brain went nuts with the implications there. <3
> 
> Anywho, thoughts/comments/reviews/critiques/etc. are all welcome. <3 Thank you so much to everyone who's floored me already with thoughts/comments/etc; these really are just little therapeutic and hobbyist drabbles to pass the time (which have incidentally come to mean a lot to me); your insights and kindness mean a whole, whole lot. :)

  _He can't really sleep, has never slept, not in this form—and too much time this is, alone with his thoughts—_

* * *

 

Toriel glances out the window; as night creeps on, the residual light of the afternoon sky is a hasty scrawl and for once, for once the splendid winter sunset doesn't dazzle her. Not when they're out there, alone, and certainly not if they've gone to do what Sans is almost sure of . . .

To bring _him_ back.

Her paws restively caress tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic; Papyrus will be returning from Alphys and Undyne's soon and she knows that after such a strange, strange day, he'd appreciate spaghetti's sheer familiarity. She sees but doesn't see the vegetables: has washed them and set them out on the cutting board, a veritable army: she's held the knife for a long, long time but the blade feels like deadweight and more than she can bear.

Her mind can't yet begin to comprehend what Sans has said.

If Alphys comes with Papyrus, she's half-tempted to ask her for more details . . . but . . . no, Alphys is so delicate, better not to tip those scales and leave Undyne in a worried mess and with a week's worth, at least, of coaxing, gentleness, of undoing inadvertent damage . . . No. She trusts Sans, with the child's life, with . . . truths . . . that she can hardly fathom . . . But this, this truth of all the others cuts her to the quick and no, she doesn't want to know it, doesn't want to shoulder the burden so willingly this time: well enough she knows what Frisk has done, what Chara's done—he's told her all, by now—there's no reason now to hide those truths because they sneak up so oftentimes on him, on them—

But—Asriel?

Her own dear Asriel, her son, her gentle, delicate, good-SOULled son wearing a different face and name and form?

(She's almost forgotten when he was a child, still, when Chara fell, when so often there'd be tear tracks in his fur but he'd say nothing and now, and now she wonders—)

(Not this, not what he's become, not what happened—a savage mockery, a desecration, of a Monster funeral—)

"tori!"

She glances down.

The knife, intended for a tomato, had slipped, had almost caught her paw—were it not for the phalanges clamped vice-like around her wrist, or his hand lashed out to shield her own—

Dark eyes stare up into hers; she feels him trembling; here again, always again, is one of those moments whose gravity she'll never fully know; she swallows, looks away, but can't stop her ears so as not to hear his voice, laden with—she doesn't know—loveguilt _loss_ fear—

* * *

"P u t  t h e  k n i f e  d o w n."

* * *

(1 ATK. 1 DEF.

He'll never tell the risk he took.)

* * *

"Frisk . . ."

They're just outside the door, at the foot of the front stoop, the steps somehow seeming more a mountain now than Mt. Ebott ever was. Freed at last from the Underground, the initial wonderment worn off, Asriel finds that he doesn't like the cold: he feels it _doing_ things to him. He knows as well as they what it is to die, but this—

In the Underground, there was some degree of comfort in it, in every defeat, no matter at whose hand: Sans' or theirs.

Because he'd always, always come back, just like they did.

And the first time, the first time, it was in warm springtime, and the body was not really his own—was not—there was always Chara and—

But now—

(How much it must scare them now—)

"It'll be okay." Frisk's teeth are set against their chattering but it doesn't do much good; he can feel the tremors wrack their body, even with the coat; a cold, long night is coming . . . "We n-need to get you somewhere warm. If . . . if everyone freaks out . . . I won't let them hurt you. And. You can just stay in our room with me and P'yrus until . . . until . . ."

A whimper and, for a moment, nothing more.

"W-what I did to him . . ."

"Once it was for good!" Frisk hugs the pot more fiercely yet. "Don't you ever forget that, Asriel."

They sit down on the step a moment, torn between the need to get inside and hoping to impart these truths to him beyond the shadow of a doubt before someone else might win—well enough they know that the others, however well-intentioned, might yet cast doubt darkly over him, darker still than he's ever done unto himself, and . . . and . . . no one needs that now . . . which is to say nothing of—

"Every day," they whisper, "every day I can't forget what I did, what Chara and I did. They did the same to you, I know, and in the end, in your—in your Form . . . on the surface . . . and . . . and what you were left with . . . a-after Alphys . . . Asriel, I can't imagine. I still have my body. A-and my SOUL . . . I . . ." They shake their head, don't dare tread _that_ ground because even now they aren't really sure . . . even now they wonder how to win against Chara, when Chara's always there and has so often—

"Well," they manage finally, "there's still this, isn't there? A Happy Ending."

"Is it?" Wearily, the words, and not like him at all. Their fingers impulsively reach out to touch his face, are startled at the tracks of tears turned ice against the fur and pollen there. They understand what's turned his tongue: there's nothing more to run from, no other mask to hide behind.

And for all their good intentions, this won't get them anywhere, this isn't where he needs to be. Sometimes the world's too big for talk like this . . .

Restively Frisk stands, kicks the snow from their boots, steps into the pool of porchlight and knocks on the front door.

* * *

Toriel eyes Sans with a mixture of bemusement and utter disbelief. One of their more well-worn puns dances at her tongue but she refrains; sheer curiosity gets the better of her and she wonders that a joke might dismiss it all-too-easily. "So you have baked something before, have you not?"

The effort alone is enough to astound her; it goes without saying that baking and dicing vegetables for sauce are two different things entirely. But still, but still, as he rolls that same tomato in his hand and carefully fingers the hilt of the knife, harmlessly laying on the counter now—

"sure. i mean . . ." His head is tilted downwards, keeping from her a clear reading of his face, the subtle changes to mark his emotions behind the perpetual smile and presence or absence of pinpricks of light. "when we used to meet at the door, you mentioned baking pies. a lot. snail, and b'scotch, and . . . i wondered what you liked so much about them."

The tomato's set back on the counter; his phalanges play against the knife but still he doesn't pick it up—she doesn't have the heart to say that soon Papyrus will be home and if they want to have spaghetti—

"that door . . . sure, it was sealed from the outside, but . . . uh."

"Shortcuts break the rules?"

"something like that, sometimes, if you know what you're doing."

"Ah." Toriel tilts her head, catches the darkness out the window, looks away. "Surely you would not have been in danger, trying?"

"nah. anyway, tori, i just thought i'd surprise you sometime. the day i brought that pie was the day frisk came through the ruins, so . . ."

A nod, again a nod from the Boss Monster, half-cast in silhouette by the gathered night outside the kitchen window and the meager light over the spotless stove. "Do you know . . ." She stares down at her paws, the filed claws, traces a pattern absently against the table's grain. "I've always kept a diary . . . except it wasn't, really. I filled so many books with jokes."

Well enough he knows, wonders if she has forgotten the night he stumbled home, smelling of the forest and the mountain and the dark. Seeing her now, his SOUL aches, and he decides on feigning ignorance.

"heh. no kidding. did i get to hear some?"

"Many, yes. And after I met you, I . . . Even though I'd never seen your face and didn't know your name, for some reason, all I could write were skeleton puns."

Sans turns from the counter then, sits down at the table, grins (as always) at her, carries a certain disbelief in his eyes that she doesn't dare speak of; instead she takes his hand and reaches out with one broad paw to touch his face.

* * *

And then—

* * *

Hastily he shakes his head, SOUL snared on something like a Human's racing heart. "Tori. Please. Stay here."

 _My son!_ gets stuck in her throat and now that the moment's come, now that reality's come crashing to their doorstep— _My son!_ and _My child . . ._

"No."

A sidelong glance; it isn't condescension, but—

_there's too much here at play, threads all converging, it's—so much could go wrong and i—frisk, bucko, did you think about this first?_

That's what they've always done though, isn't it? For better or worse, all they've done is break the rules or turn the whole world upside down. Why does it surprise him now?

And Toriel—

His hand is firm around her own. "okay. let's go."

* * *

Frisk says nothing. They wait for no more than a few seconds there outside the door, well enough they know, but with Asriel shaking in their arms it seems much more like a lifetime. And, perhaps, to some extent it is: they don't know what's running through his head but oh, but oh, it must be a hellish mess, a tangled-fear-and-hope: Asriel, sweet-innocent, and—what he became—

"Asriel," they whisper, "Asriel, d-don't . . . let go . . . okay?"

No. He shakes his head, leans back against them once again, the one reassurance he can give (because sometimes words are too deceitful)—no—he's come too far, they've come too far, for that. What was he filled with, coming down the mountain, other than—?

_Won't . . . let go . . . if you don't, Frisk._

". . . Frisk. What do I say?"

They smile, slightly, knowing they don't really need to say a word.

* * *

And then someone opens the door.

* * *

They expect it to be Sans, expect him to act as a guard between Asriel and Toriel, but—

His eyes are wide; he blinks; the house-light at the edges of her silhouette—it hurts—but that isn't why he's crying now—nor is he really cognizant of his meager leaves stretched forth, such that they can within the pot's constraints—

". . . M-Mommy?"

* * *

Upturned towards her in the twilit haze—she doesn't see the form, all for that face—his face—she doesn't see the petals or the stem or roots clinging deep to clodded sod—she sees only—

Her paws tremble oh-so-slightly as she reaches for him, as Frisk willingly and tenderly opens their arms that Toriel might kneel, might hold him, might peer into his eyes with hers, the same deep vermillion shade; shudders wrack her frame as she sees not the deadened, hollowed, wicked eyes she's come to expect always from . . .

No . . . these eyes are his. The voice . . .

Convulsively she swallows. "Asriel? My darling son, it _is_ you . . . is it not?"

The sentence trails, the final words no more than a whisper, something meant really only for the two of them, though Frisk and Sans can hear.

"M-Mom." Frisk winces when they seem him writhe; well enough they know the internal struggle waged—well enough they haven't known quite what to feel when faced with love and kindness from the ones they've . . . "Mom, I don't . . ." Small fangs clench, torrential words forced out rapid-fire from between choked sobs. "I don't want to hurt you anymore. I—"

But the great Boss Monster shakes her head, just shakes her head for a few moments; all the ones she's lost—oh—all the ones she's wished she could bury—all the ones she's wanted so often to hold again—all the times—(she _can't_ think or really know of all the times she's hurled fire-magic at him—all the times she's said—)

_Do you not see, dear son, that I, that I, have hurt you too?_

_(Do you not remember . . . I could not bring myself to believe Chara was such a . . . violent child. Could not believe they really_ hated _so. Dear sweet Asriel, if I had . . . been a little wiser . . . if I had . . . What I could have spared you from . . .)_

And the flood of it, the whole of it, the little pieces she'd never thought to put together—things she hasn't dare considered—the flowers in the pie which made Asgore so desperately ill? Chara's sickness, not long after?

. . . Chara's death?

Frisk's hand is at her arm; Sans shifts into her view; both their eyes, in different ways, for different reasons, oh, are dark. Tension shrouds them, snares them; Toriel's no fool; she knows there's something here of great magnitude at stake . . .

"Mom?" The Human child's voice is soft and steady; to supplement the word their hand slips to touch a leaf, to caress a petal and a pollen-furred face—and then, and then, to stroke the softness of her ear, as so often they've done.

"tori? you okay?"

"I understand . . ." Soft, _his_ voice, soft and oh-so-heavy—how many times has she heard it so? "I understand if you . . . hate me . . ."

Has he mistaken her silence for that? For hate?

Her great paws caress the pot; suddenly now the leaves outstretched and the petals encircling his face seem too delicate for her to touch, blunt-clawed though she is these days . . . "Asriel." His name is like a talisman. "Asriel, for nothing could I hate you. It is . . . this is much for you to take in, is it not? So it is for me. After all these years, my son . . . all this time . . . I thought . . . when you died . . . when I last saw you, you . . . were in a form I scarcely recognized . . . but it was you, the same, carrying our Chara, and . . ."

"P-please"—he buries his head, such that he can, against her; instinctively now she reaches up to stroke him; Frisk closes their eyes a moment, stunned by the tenderness, and knows by the soft working of those paws that Toriel's as good as stroking the soft, soft innocent crown of his head, in his truest, dearest form. Her darling son. Her prince.

* * *

Sans leans down. "c'mon, kid. let's give them a minute."

Frisk glances at him, startled; scarcely could he bring himself to leave them alone with Asriel before—hadn't he and Toriel come to rescue them, no matter that there was nothing at all to save them from? And now, and now—why this? Where suddenly the trust, which Sans himself had disavowed, by which to leave Tori—

"in a second, frisk."

Wordlessly and silently they slip back out the front door; Sans sits on the topmost step, snowless, sheltered by the awning; half-cast in porchlight, Frisk hesitates, staring at him, realizing only now how very old he seems.

"have a sit, kid."

So they do.

Silence, for a moment. Frisk's SOUL keeps shifting, subtly, aching to go back inside. And now that there's such silence, ah, they can feel Chara as well—their fists clench against their will—Chara's restive, bitter; Chara cries out in a rage at all their weakness—Asriel's—and Frisk's—

 **You've killed her before. And** _**him.** _ **Ha! Don't think it wasn't** _**you.** _ **Steep in this simpering sweetness** _**now** _ **, Frisk, but it won't last forever. Wait. Just wait. Just wait, because** _**this** _ **world is just the same.**

**KILL or BE KILLED . . .**

"kiddo."

They must jump, must have a haunted fear behind their eyes because his own are dark; he knows their myriad expressions and can tell—with startling finesse—what's running through their mind; when . . . Chara . . .

"i didn't trust him, frisk." Sans rubs the back of his skull thoughtfully. "i didn't really trust you, either, to be honest. not at first. but now . . ."

He shakes his head, doesn't finish the thought and they are glad. Better that it's left unsaid, always.

"anyway. it hasn't been so long, so i guess it's strange that i've thought about this so much . . . but . . . well, it's been a helluva long time coming. frisk. you did the right thing, kid."

They feel a headache gathering somewhere behind their eyes. "Think so?"

"yeah. tori's—she's—i mean, she and i have . . . frisk, when you left to get him . . . i didn't have much choice, you know? she gathered where you went but didn't understand; she'd have maybe even killed him on sight, thinking that he'd hurt you . . . unless . . ."

 _You told her?_ Uncertainly they shrug. There's more than he knows, anyway, which—well—

Soon enough, they and Asriel will have to have that talk. For everything that he's, with or without Chara, done . . . Toriel might forgive him in an instant, but the others—? Asgore, nearly victim of Chara's regicidal plot? Alphys, Alphys who on Asgore's orders unknowingly created him? (Trouble enough she's had owning up to the Amalgamates—)

Frisk's head pounds more fiercely yet and they can't bear to think any further beyond that, beyond the simple knowing.

"Thank you," is all they manage, finally, meaning it if not sure how.

"didn't i say no more RESETs, kid? there's been too many secrets in the underground. i won't ever say what isn't mine to say, but frisk, sometimes . . . well. i think if any of this is going to work—and i don't just mean with him—there's no room for secrets now."

"Alphys . . ."

"yeah."

They lapse into uneasy silence for a moment, tallying their own secrets in turn. Frisk glances at him from the corner of one eye. "So. Should I tell him about you and—?"

"nah. that's my job. anyway." Sans shuffles his feet. "he and i are overdue for a chat. there's—uh—i'm sure you've guessed that he and i've . . . had our issues, too."

Papyrus is the first to flash across Frisk's mind, but in some ways Frisk's sure that he's the least of them.

"frisk, i know you meant well, but . . . to be honest with you, the first thing that i wondered when you left was if you'd thought about all this. there's a lot here that could hurt a lot of people. it's not his fault—don't think that i'm judging him for that—it doesn't work that way for him. it's just . . ."

"I know." Frisk hugs their knees, shivers still despite their coat until they feel his phalanges carefully carding through their hair, a wonderful counter-rhythm to that mounting pain just behind their eyes. "I'm ready. We can do this, all of us."

Sometimes he wonders if they hope too much.

* * *

Night.

Asriel peers through the windowpane, caught up in the waxing moonlight and the play of snow and stars. Perhaps sometime he'll wake Frisk and ask to see the stars for real—

Not now, though. It's been a trying day for them, and they're sprawled under the covers, not yet quite asleep, but close enough that he can't bear to wake them. And too, across the room, in a rather gaudy racecar bed is Papyrus—

(How ironic, though—he never seemed much of a sleeper in the Underground—)

Asriel slowly exhales, shifts from the window, watches Frisk for a moment longer, isn't quite sure what to do now that night is given him. He can't really sleep, has never slept, not in this form—and too much time this is, alone with his thoughts—

 _Dad's not here?_ is the first thread to spool itself from the labyrinthine depths of his wandering mind. _That's strange . . ._ Well enough he remembers what happened after his and Chara's deaths—that Mom, enraged, grief-struck, cast herself into exile, the last guard of the Ruins, first hope of the future-fallen-ones . . . _But I need to talk to him, to tell him . . . that I'm so, so sorry . . . because I never . . . not even when I woke up in his garden . . . when I was so scared, so relieved to see him . . . I never told him all of it, and I—_

He can't help it now. The night's too long, too dark; loneliness and darkness he's yet suffered in more measure than is due. "Frisk, please—I'm sorry—please wake up."

The Human child stirs, whispers from the pillow, "Asriel . . . ?"

"Frisk, I can't sleep."

". . . oh." Wearily they rub their eyes, sit up slowly in bed, blink at him through the watered moonlight, the subtle reflection of the snow. It's unsettling, in its own way, that he occupies the same sill and same pot as Papyrus' buttercup—that subtle reminder of—

"Yeah, I can understand that. Here."

Carefully Frisk plucks him from the sill, the ceramic pot cool against their hands—maybe they should move him somewhere else in the future, somewhere warm—but for tonight—

Tenderly they wrap him up in the corner of the quilt, clutching him against their chest until their body heat is enough to warm him, his presence enough to soothe them. When they look again (half-snared yet by sleep), it's to find a languid face, vermillion eyes half-closed; his leaves lay idly there against their hand. When he speaks again, the words are slurred and soft, like water, unchecked, running.

"Frisk. W-where's Dad? Can we see him?"

"Asgore's staying with Alphys and Undyne." Frisk takes it for granted that he knows them, at the very least by name; hadn't he walked the same paths as they, so very long ago? He'd befriended them and—

"I'm sorry, Asriel, he and Mom just never . . ."

"No. She's right." Asriel's stem curls against itself. "A-after Chara, I mean . . . f-for a while he kept their body in a coffin, and their SOUL . . . w-well, he still hadn't figured out how to break the Barrier just then, or else he was too . . . afraid. Mom knew, though, and she couldn't see why he wouldn't— I-I mean, Humans don't live as long as Monsters; so . . . he could've . . . taken Chara's SOUL and . . . asked the Humans for six more, after they'd fallen down, and then . . .

"Anyway. It doesn't matter, does it?"

Frisk doesn't have any answers to that. Without Asgore's searching, without Alphys' aid, Asriel would never have—

But perhaps, like Sans, it's the best peace they can hope for. _It doesn't matter, does it? . . ._

"Frisk?"

"Hm?" They study him in the darkness, that sweet languid face, the bright vermillion eyes grown wide and dark with a child's sudden intuition. Toriel had stayed up for a while, but—

"Frisk, did Sans leave when Mom went to bed?"

The question's misleading naïveté stuns them, steals their speech for just a moment—and that moment's hesitation is enough for him to know.

* * *

She stares up at the ceiling, into the comforting and bounded dark; she's closed the shades—better not to see the moon and stars tonight, that seemingly-boundless cosmos out there which at times threatens to swallow her. She misses the Underground the most on nights like this . . .

One paw searches for his hand.

"Please wake up, dear one."

Sans stirs; heavy sleeper though he is, he has an uncanny knack for knowing just when he's needed. "'sup, tori?"

"Sans. My . . . son . . . is in the next room. This morning I thought he'd been dead for centuries . . ."

There's nothing much to say to this. He begins to trace the bones of her paw, a gesture between them become ritual—but now, now it's just in sympathy.

"And when I held him today, my heart . . . I . . . as a mother . . ." Toriel blinks into the darkness, startled at the sudden tears springing to her eyes: she'd wept often enough of late for Sans and Frisk but—Asriel—for him she thought she'd cried her fill (even though each Human child's death was, in some ways, but another iteration of the self-same grief, even if she cradled it and called it by a different name—)

"Sans. Was I . . . am I . . . such a . . . bad mother?"

The words are hard; they tear her; they stick in her throat and claw their way out and when they do, they're ugly sounds. The breath is thick in her lungs and each inhalation is a gasp. She moves no more to wipe her eyes. She can't, she can't—not anymore—

The grief scrawled across her SOUL, embedded in her very being, almost tantamount to who she is, snares at Sans—and never, never has he hated feeling so damn helpless—he doesn't need for her to speak to read the fear and terror there, the rage, the sorrow greater even in some ways than at her children's deaths—her own pride, rivalling Asgore's; her own folly; her own foolish determination to believe that no Human child could be so cruel, so violent, that she didn't even acknowledge the proof of it before her, in her own, dear Asriel, her own flesh and blood—

Would that she'd realized then what kind of creature Chara was—Human or no—

"C-Chara _hated_ me," she manages at last. "They hated me. But I couldn't see it, couldn't bring myself to believe it, and what they did to Asriel . . . my darling son . . ."

"tori . . . tori, it's gonna be okay."

She lapses into silence, shuddering, shuddering, and then, from nowhere—or from the past hundreds of years—there come great wrenching sobs. Toriel clenches her teeth as if to muffle them but it's no good; she feels Sans wrap his arms around her, feels the quiet cadence of his SOUL seeking her own, to soothe her: he in turn become her anchor as so often she's been for him—

And oh, and oh, she's almost forgotten what it is to really cry as if her very SOUL would break, until tonight.

* * *

Frisk has fallen into a deep, deep sleep.

Asriel watches them, lulled into a lethargy but sleepless, always.

Until through the wall he hears a cry. At first his roots prickle and sap flares with indignation—however naïve the question was, he's not so—but no—a moment more and the cadenced decibels are worse, are far, far worse to hear than those from any act of love.


End file.
